stately, though hurried step. The intruder did not speak, and Helen did not look; but she knew it was Elliott, and she felt his gaze was on her. "Miss St. Maur," he said at length, in a deep hollow tone, "I am come to say farewell for ever!" She started, turned deadly pale, and, alarmed at his words and tone, looked up, forgetting, as she looked, every thing but the agony depicted on his countenance. "Good Heavens! Mr. Elliott, you are ill! very ill! What can have happened?" and she held out one hand, whilst she clung to the trellice with the other. There was that in her manner, that but a few hours since would have made certainty brighter than hope; that very manner now showed him but the more plainly what a wretch he was. He took her hand, and pressed it between his, but made no answer. The marble touch of those hands alarmed her still more. "Speak to me! Tell me what has been!" Then, a fearful thought coming across her, she added-"Mr. De Roos! You have not hurt him?" "Do you love him?" inquired Elliott, with almost fierce earnestness. "Oh! no! no! but I would not that you " and she stopped abruptly. "Fear not! no blood is on my hands, and he is below my. anger." "Thank Heaven! but why do you look thus; you have been thrown! you suffer!" she said, as he gave her no answer. "Oh, stay not here! Come to the house! and let me send for some one instantly." "This to me! such gentle kindness! but you do not know the wretch before you. I am not ill-not in body; and if the heart is wrung, who cares for one blighted by shame!" Blighted by shame! What mean you? No! no! this cannot be; you do not know what you are saying!" and she looked earnestly into his face. Oh, but for this! I might He stopped and turned away. "You must not look upon me thus, or I shall shame my manhood; you must look coldly on me, as the world will do. Yes, the finger of scorn will point at me, and I must bear it!" The memory of his mother's wrongs unnerved him, and the flowery wreaths bent and crashed beneath his weight, Helen's tears fell fast, though she knew not what he meant. "Is this kind? Is this just? Mr. Elliott, you have friends who prize you, who owe you much, and yet you despise their regard, and will not trust them with your sorrows!" "Those tears, "Despise!" and he turned full upon her. too! and they fall for me!" and, for a moment, all the love, a knowledge of whose power came with its hopelessness, blazed fully forth. "If I might," he began, as if to himself. Helen drew back, trembling and blushing; he paused, and then continued "No! no! this must not be! innocence must never join with shame. I must not seek your love, but I will not forfeit your esteem." The expression of his features changed, and love gave place to honour. He took both her hands in his, and bent over her. "I have alarmed you, Miss St. Maur-forgive me! and bless you for those tears! their memory will lighten my load of misery. I may not linger, for each moment would but heighten the agony of parting, and I might be tempted beyond the power of resistance. need not tell you what was my presumption. As we stood together by that dark stream, with the deep wood around us, and the bright stars above, my spirit owned a spell no mortal thing can burst; a tie that death alone can break. You had been the star of my childhood; but what are the feelings of the boy, to the intensity and depth of the passion of man? I "That hour! but why linger on its memory? It was the first, last blissful hour my lonely life has known; but the splendid meteor has set in darkness, leaving the memory of its brightness to fling its mockery over the future. I knew myself poor and unknown; but I might win riches and honour, and you were not like the cold world. The visions of the future gilded the ruggedness of the present. I might have known such things could never be; but who ever loved and doubted? Loved too, with the deep passion of a heart thrown back upon itself; deeper from the very presumption of its love-a principle of life-a love never wasted on another. Yesternight, and never, but with life, would I have resigned my lofty hopes; to-day I ask not even for remembrance. No! let me pass from your memory, and be as one who has never been; though every tear is worth a world, I would not cause you one: poverty you might have remembered, shame you must forget! But yesternight I dreamt of honour and renown, to-day I think but of shame and obscurity. I must be unnoticed and unknown-I cannot brook the questioning of whom I am. The mark of guilt is on my brow-the shadow of my parents' shame is over me. I had a father, and I must not bear his name !— I had a mother, with all of woman's purity, deceived-deluded and yet I cannot clear her fame! I am the cousin of De Roos without the power to repel his scorn-his uncle's child, but not his heir. To linger here is but to link you with a name of guilt. Forgive my presumption, despise me not for my daring. May hope be less bright than reality; the present fairer than the past. May every blessing be upon you! Farewell! Farewell!" He pressed the hands he held to his lips, gave one long look, as if to image every feature on his heart, then released his grasp, rushed from the bower, sprang on his horse, and put him to his utmost speed. So wild-so strange-had been the whole scene-so sudden his departure-that Helen stood for some minutes unconscious of his absence. The deep hollow sound of the horse's tramp aroused her; she sprang to the entrance of the bower, every thing was forgotten but his agony, and the desire to relieve it. "He is gone!" She uttered a faint cry to recall him, but he heard it not; he had felt the danger of delay. A faintness came over her, but it weakened not the intensity of suffering; she stood with clasped hands, watching the motions of the receding horseman; he reached the top of the hill on which she had first seen him; then, and not till then, did he turn for a last look. She fancied he waved his hand, her handkerchief fluttered in the air; he lingered a moment, and then descended the hill on the other side. Had they met for the last time? "Oh, blame her not! When Zephyrs wake, SCOTT. "I was just coming to call upon you," said Mrs. Jones to Mrs. Mahon. "Pray come in then! I have just finished my walk; and there are the Johnsons, I see." There were the Johnsons, and the whole party were soon seated in Mrs. Mahon's drawing-room, and the real state of the weather agreed on, after due differences and coincidences of opinion had been propounded. Mrs. Jones began to get fidgetty. "A shocking thing this illness of poor Miss St. Maur's! Don't you think so? Poor thing! and I know Dr. Musters has a very bad opinion of her; indeed, I really think her friends ought to interfere; for poor dear Doctor Jones used to say, neither calomel nor bark would cure love." แ La, Mrs. Jones! what do you mean by love?" inquired Mrs. Jahnson, "I thought it was a cold she had caught the night she fell into the water! And I am sure I can't think how it can be love, when we all know she might have any body she liked." "That is going rather too far," said her son, craning up, "she is rather a fine girl, certainly, and has a large fortunemore even than the ten thousand a-year people speak of-but then she may not suit every man's taste. I should like a wife with a little more spirit, and more style, and dash; and I think she demeaned herself by paying so much attention to that Elliott." "It might seem strange to those who do not understand how things are; but to those that do, it is very natural ;" and Mrs. Jones looked, แ "Big with the fate of Cato and of Rome." "What can you mean?" cried two or three at once. La, don't you know? Well, I thought every one must have known by this time. I went away the very day it happened, and only came back yesterday, so I made sure every body knew she was dying for love of Mr. De Roos, and fear of Mr. Elliott." "You must be mistaken, Mrs. Jones, Caroline has been with Miss St. Maur ever since her illness," remarked Mrs. Mahon, who having set her mind on De Roos as a son-in-law, never quietly allowed him to be awarded to another. "Miss St. Maur may not choose to tell, but I know what I am saying," said Mrs. Jones. "Pray tell us?" and the lady, wishing nothing better, began "You all know how Miss St. Maur nearly killed herself to save Mr. De Roos, and when they all came up, she was kneeling by him, and he kissing her hands, over and over again. Well! she would come down in the evening, only to see him, and all thought it a settled thing, and he as much as told his servants it was, and he went over the next morning very early, and in at a side door, and it was all settled; for I was out walking, and saw her come to the door to wish him good-bye, and it seemed a very tender leave-taking indeed. Well! when Mr. De Roos got home, he told Mr. Elliott, who is a furious man when in a passion, and he said he would have her himself, and swore a terrible oath that if he married Miss St. Maur, he would shoot her through the heart; and he ordered his horse directly, and rode off like a madman to Hurlestone, and there he found the young lady sitting in an arbour. So he made her an offer, and when she would not have him, because it comes out he is the natural son of a butcher, he flew into a great passion, and took hold of her hands, and vowed if she married Mr. De Roos he would kill them both; and then he would have put her on his horse and carried her away, but she screamed; and so he let her go, and rode away, making her take an oath, down on her knees, she would not tell any one; and soon after, she was found half dead with fright, lying on the grass, and you know how ill she has been ever since." |